


Flatline

by alex_wh0



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew Minyard Has a Bad Day, Angst with a Happy Ending, But he also has ice cream and Neil, Introspection, M/M, POV Andrew Minyard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22331524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_wh0/pseuds/alex_wh0
Summary: Andrew introspects through a bad day, relearns how to smile and eats copious amounts of ice cream.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 14
Kudos: 188





	Flatline

**Author's Note:**

> There's some heavy introspection ahead. But it's all okay in the end. 
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](https://alex-wh0.tumblr.com/) and on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/alex_wh0).

**Flatline** /ˈflatlʌɪn/

_Verb_

_In medical terms, a cessation of heart contractions or brain wave activity, indicated by a flat line on an ECG monitor._

Aaron’s textbook was open in front of him. The dorm was empty; Neil was at practice and Aaron had class. He hopped on to the desk by the window and pulled the textbook closer.

Andrew had to disagree. His heart has never stopped beating, but he has been flatlining his whole life.

 _Cessation of brain wave activity._ Andrew snorted. If he had to describe the topography of his mind, he’d call it a stretch of barren land coloured grey, interspersed with flashes of auburn. It was flat, flat, flat, drenched in a nothingness so extreme, he barely felt anything.

 _Take that, stupid textbook_ , he thought, before realizing that he was talking to a _book_.

Two cigarettes back-to-back did not help with the itchy feeling that he had woken up with. Today was not a good day. He had woken up knowing that. Knowing that his body was going to feel the wrong size, his brain like an uncomfortable summer day, his actions sluggish. Neil had taken one look at him, nodded, and taken the ice cream out.

Andrew was unfamiliar with gratitude, but that morning, he had come closing to tasting the true essence of the word on his tongue. But it had melted away along with the ice cream, and he no longer knew what to do.

On his way to the washroom, he caught sight of himself in the long mirror that he and Neil had bought last year. Aaron had been baffled. “Why,” he had asked, incredulity seeping through the single syllable. Nicky had merely snickered and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. Contrary to speculation, they hadn’t done anything risqué with it. Andrew had grown tired of Neil flinching every time he saw his reflection. He still flinched, but sometimes, Andrew stood behind him and told him his eyes reminded him of peppermint toothpaste, and watched them widen comically.

He flattens his hair, uncombed since 7am that morning and smoothes his shirt down, takes in his reflection and wonders what Neil sees in him. He doesn’t remember the last time he smiled. His mouth is a permanent flat line. He had stopped when he was 7. Now, at 22, he’s forgotten how to.

He pulls out his phone and Googles “how to smile”.

_9,54,00,00,000 results in 0.53 seconds._

Andrew snorts, but opens a wikiHow article anyway. Ten seconds of scrolling later, he hurls the phone at the wall, and slams the door to the bedroom.

_What was wrong with him? Why was he bothered?_

Of late, he feels stirrings of _something_ every time Neil walks into a room, but he is afraid to examine what it is.

_Flashes of auburn in a grey landscape._

He pushes it down, sometimes forcibly, sometimes reluctantly, always hides it under a façade of blankness, but he suspects Neil knows anyway. He had the ability to read Andrew like one of those Russian novels he reads.

Andrew hated it, hated him. But, he also knew when he was lying to himself.

His bad day followed him into the bedroom. His bunk bed felt too small, the blanket stifled him, and he felt hot tears pressing behind his eyes. He was horrified. _What was wrong with him?_

He’d been flatlining for so long, so why did everything feel overwhelming now? Logically, Andrew knew that he wasn’t as apathetic as people believed him to be.

 _Monster_ , they called him. _Blank, incapable of feeling._

He was all those things, but he was also a mosaic of anger, fear, possessiveness and fleeting instances of an emotion he was afraid to label.

He sighed and pressed his face into the pillow. He needed another smoke, he needed a pint of the double chocolate ice cream sitting in the freezer, he needed Neil’s presence, he needed to sleep, he needed to step on the accelerator and drive away from everything.

*

What seemed like an hour later, Andrew hears Neil let himself into the dorm. A part of him was aghast that he knew how to differentiate Neil from the others by his footsteps alone. Andrew listlessly lay in bed as Neil puttered around the kitchen, humming something that sounded suspiciously like the theme of the cartoon he had watched last night.

Andrew felt a prickle of warmth run through him. He was made of complexities that went beyond him, and he barely understood himself, but for now he guessed that it was okay to be that way.

A careful knock on the door.

“Andrew? Are you in there? I’m coming in.”

He just pulled the sheets tightly around him. Neil was like the sun sometimes, and Andrew felt like Icarus, fear and want waging a constant battle. He never knew which side to take. He never knew when he’d fall.

Neil softly closes the door behind him. Andrew can hear him rooting around his closet for fresh clothes.

The shower comes on. Time ticks by. The hot, tight feeling lessens a bit. He breathes.

For the first time in nine hours, he takes a deep breath and rubs his chest, willing the vice grip to loosen.

When Neil enters the room the second time, Andrew crooks a finger at him, and pulls him closer. Neil comes easily, asks no questions, and after a silent question, holds him and rubs soothing circles on his back.

“How many pints of ice cream,” Neil asks, voice soft, words falling from his lips like a prayer, and Andrew holds on.

“Four,” he rasps out, throat tight from disuse and cigarettes.

“And you call me a junkie,” Neil huffs out a short breath.

Andrew looks up at him, nudging his nose into the crook of Neil’s neck. He smells of mint soap and something indescribable, and the prickle of warmth inside Andrew grows more intense. He rubs his chest again, absently.

Neil holds him a little tighter and rests his chin on his head.

A few years ago, being held like this would have been an impossible concept, a pipe dream, something unfathomable. But Andrew had learned to trust, to relax his boundaries.

Maybe he has room to keep growing, he ponders briefly, snaking an arm around Neil’s waist. He feels him stiffen, then relax. Maybe they _both_ have room to grow.

He feels the warmth bubble up inside him – foreign and unusual, but doesn’t stop to overthink it or pick it apart or tear it to shreds just because it is new. He tilts his face to look at Neil, and for what seems like the first time in an eternity, smiles.

He feels Neil’s breath hitch, sees him scramble to collect himself, and then he reaches up to brush his lips against his.

Flatlines had potential to break, splinter and sometimes bend into curves.

 _Take that, you idiot textbook,_ he thinks, as he pulls away from Neil, and finally goes to sleep.


End file.
